Sailing+Pacific+Further

Intervention concern originally sent to Bryon from Diane Trotter

Suggestion: Have a committee/support team, along with, extracurricular teachers, student and parent/guardian, decide which activity would be most beneficial.

Thank you for reading!

Diane

Hello Pirates! I was one of several lucky Pirates to travel to Vegas and learn about effective High School Learning Communities’ practices. Let the information below be a summary of what can be done to help Pacific High journey to the next level. I could write a book with all the information I collected! Contact me if you want more details/samples of anything mentioned.

INQUIRY-BASED PROJECTS READY TO IMPLEMENT AND SUPPORT FOR CREATION [|http://www.pbl-online.org] [|http://www.edutopia.org] [|http://pathways.ohiorc.org] [|http://www.bie.org]

STUDENTS CREATING UNIQUE PROJECTS


 * Question (find a consultant, possible questions they may have)
 * Understand (analysis, interviews, sources)
 * Experience (experience hours, experience log)
 * Service (service project, relation to economics)
 * Testimony (reflective essay, testimony before a panel)

STAFF CREATING UNIQUE PROJECTS
 * Authenticity (issues matter to students)
 * Academic Rigor
 * Applied Learning (team work, communication)
 * Active Exploration (field-based investigations, community explorations, internships)
 * Adult Connections (experts in the field collaborate and assess)
 * Assessment Practices (exhibitions of work, professional standards of performance)

INTERVENTIONS
 * Day One 9th grade: Take each student’s picture in a cap and gown. Create a Class of 2013 wall in each school’s office. Title, “What have you done today to reach this goal?” Before students drop out, ask them to remove their picture from the wall.
 * Send a mock diploma home for parents to use the same way on their refrigerator.
 * After 6 weeks of school, list all students on a different wall. Ask teachers to honestly place a sticky dot above a student they have a relationship with. Goal: at least one dot next to each name.
 * Counselors automatically sign students up for extra-curricular activities when students are in need of intervention
 * Wednesday’s after school: Half of our staff supporting students in their projects.
 * Visit student homes in times of good things.
 * Allow students to vote on projects to complete and/or themes to follow www.polleverywhere.com

TOPICS TO EXPLORE Leadership and Justice:
 * License students as Tax Advisors
 * Create transportation solutions for our region
 * Homelessness
 * Develop a drug and alcohol prevention plan for school
 * Research and compare the immigration policies of nations
 * Choose a disability and research the navigation issues
 * Students act as interpreters at local agencies

Life Science:
 * You Make Me Ill: The Disease Project (see Pace for more details)
 * Eat Your Heart Out (see Pace for more details)
 * Poaching in Africa
 * Review school lunch menus and develop a monthly menu for healthy living to the School Board
 * Develop family medical histories of underserved populations
 * Collect water samples from wells in the community, make comparative analysis of the findings, and present to City Council
 * Create a BioSphere

SciPhy High:
 * Ford Motor Company Partnership for Advanced Studies – Next Generation Learning Community (www.fordnglc.org)
 * How could we build a new community center using only materials that are native to California? Evaluate the strength and durability of natural and manufacture materials available in the state.
 * Build a bridge (see Pace for more objectives)

BizCom:
 * Create a thrift shop on campus
 * Work with businesses to create web pages

SHARING WITH THE COMMUNITY www.whatkidscando.org www.teachertube.com (search for lessons, too) www.thefutureschannel.com www.neok12.com www.teachersdomain.com www.hippocampus.org
 * As often as possible, create press releases to newspapers. Try for television.
 * Publish a weekly admin newsletter to the community.
 * Conduct a School Board meeting at Pacific High School.
 * Form a dialogue with another student in another country. Write an essay in your foreign language, then ePal edits!) www.epals.com
 * Commencement: Each smaller school marches in holding a sign of their school just like universities.
 * iTunes University (listen to lectures, language lessons, and more from Oxford, Cambridge, Stanford, Smithsonian, and more) [|http://www.apple.com/itunes/whatson/itunesu.html]